68 MELTON AND HOMESPUN 



puts me on the alert. The whimper is followed by a 

 dash amidst the undergrowth of the hedge, and out 

 darts a rabbit, offering a very pretty snapshot as he 

 flashes through the foliage of the trailing bramble vines 

 en route to a friendly bolt-hole. But that nimble rabbit 

 is too quick for me, and before I have time to salute 

 him he has taken sanctuary. " Jet," hot on his line, 

 now shows herself from amidst the tangle of bramble 

 scrub, and, having satisfied herself that the rabbit has 

 " gone to earth," she looks up at me with a puzzled and 

 disappointed expression in her liquid-brown eyes, and 

 as though asking why I had failed to execute my part 

 of the contract. 



The old Cocker works every inch of the orchard hedge- 

 row, in many places a thorny jungle of briers and brambles* 

 through which nothing but her extraordinary love of 

 hunting would force her to hunt. But mark how 

 she " feathers " among the fir saplings in the corner 

 of the orchard, her stump of a tail revolving like the 

 propeller of a steamer ! She is on feather, not fur, 

 this time. A swishing of the stump from side to side 

 is an infallible sign of hare or rabbit, while a rapid cir- 

 cumrotary motion of what remains of her caudal ap- 

 pendage indicates feathered game of some kind. In 

 this case it tells of the presence of an old and some- 

 what disreputable-looking cock pheasant, which rises 

 from a patch of coarse herbage with a great amount 

 of fuss and " cocketting." I strongly suspect the bird 

 to be a wanderer from a neighbouring game-farm; 

 but, whether he be or not, he finds not his way into my 

 bag, and leaves but two or three scapular feathers behind 

 him. Again does " Jet " look at me in reproachful 



